The latest on Custom Menus

[Coosbaylumber]

I work in office that has about 8-10 persons in it. We buy our version of Acad though a local dealer. I dread it when the dealer happens to show up, and then stands before Boy Genious's desk. For usually means some revisions are en route. A week away or three weeks away. We work off some server, but at individual stations and rooms. Not everyone in the office has a keyboard set-up exactly the same as one another. Usually, two or three people will work on one project, (and Boy says he works on ALL of them. I check time cards, and he may work on a certain job number but more often charges his time to G.O.)

Right now getting sort of annoyed with Acad special menu's. Per suggestion here, tried the ACAD.BAT system and it works good on an individual basis, usually. Boy has a system, I got one, as do a few others, but majority of others in the office who use the standard Acad menu system. Boy Genious tends to revise his system most everytime the Acad vendor comes in with a Beta version for a new release. We all find that unless you use a standard menu on your computer, based upon whatever release is loaded up at your terminal, you get an error message based upon menu selection.

As Boy G. has the latest version, his custom menu's tend to overwrite everyone elses. If he works on just one of my drawings, then I get an immediate error message of non-compatible menu, and can go no further. To correct this, I have to then pull up some Standard Acad menu, get out of program, get back in, and write my custom one back in then. Only seems to need one of the XREF'd drawings to have been written such in order that whole drawing will not open up. I mention this as a few of our clients do not pay their bills on time, and nothing unusual to reopen up a nine month old project and find one of the drawings was viewed by B-G which we cannot see any more. I have spoken to the vendor about this, and his only solution is to buy a new (un-released) version.

Is there some way to combine what revisions B-G institutes into his custom menus what that of others in the office. Such that he can merrily go along altering things at his keyboard, and we keep going too? His new work on custom menus tends to stop things for others about 10 minutes each day, or maybe nine months later. Speaking to him about the situation is like talking politics to an airhead. "Well, I was meaning to, but then..."


Wm.

[Cad64]

Your post is a little rambling and confusing. :unsure:

I'm not sure what "Acad special menu's" are, but if I understand correctly, these "special menu's" are being revised on a regular basis, but are not being distributed to the rest of the office. Is that correct? If so, then that is the root of your problem. The person revising these menu's has got to make sure he supplies the office with the revised menu's whenever changes are made. If you've already talked to this guy about the problem, but he still fails to take the necessary steps to make sure the office is using the latest revised menu's, then I would take it to a higher authority. Is there a supervisor you can speak with?

If it were me, I would send out an email every time this happens. I would send it to the guy that's revising the menu's, and I would copy whatever supervisor or boss or whomever, and explain the situation. I would do this every single time this problem arises. I would also keep a log of all the wasted time spent getting things sorted out every time the menu's are revised. This will help when the boss demands answers for the emails he keeps getting about the special menu's. I would also encourage my co-workers to do the same.

Are you really working on pre-2000 Autocad? :?

[Coosbaylumber]

Well, basically there are three menus in the orfice.

1 The basic one that Autodesk puts together and is loaded up eanch time the program fires off. This being the basic menu that with Autocad and has too many pull down applications for any one person to use in the Civil Engineering world.

2. The singular one that B-G uses and that is not compatible right now with any other computer, other than some beta one in another state.

3, The custom menus I have used and two others have used. We can easily interchange data and files between every single computer in the place where Acad is loaded up. We only bleeped out items which seldom get used, and emphasized others which are a bit hard for three of us to see properly w/o installing and taking off eyeglasses each and every time.

Upon firing off Acad, the batch file loads up our specially revised menus. Or it a new release or update installed upon our computer, it will revert to standard calls as per #1 above.

What would like to do is to have some some of a combo menu, that B-G and us others can use, that is totally interchangeable. We do not alter the menu's we have on each computer but once per year when some update gets installed. Thus B-G can alter his menu all he wants, we use same one, but not his functions (which ought to be unique to his new O.S.)

Can they be combined, or not? Have already disussed this with B-G and the partners, but only thing heard is that was a One Time Only error on his part, won't happen again. was unintentional. But it does happen time after time about every three four months.

Wm.

[qball]

Not sure if you have your own seat from Autocad, or you use all the exact same one. Does this autocad have individual Profiles?